Goran_M

When I started flying, I was looking at the instruments more to keep flying straight and level. Using rudder and yoke excessively. The flight instructor told me, "Forget about the instruments when you're flying VFR. Find a point on the horizon and use that as your reference point." If the engine torque is pushing the plane over, use the horizon. If the horizon is tilting, use gentle opposite pressure on the yoke. It can be a pain sometimes, but for aircraft without autopilot, you have to work harder. I know while I was learning the Sundowner, I was resting my hand on the side of the yoke just enough to counteract the torque. This is why it's best to use a yoke for x plane rather than a joystick.

I did a nice flight a few weeks ago. It wasn't big but it was interesting. St Maarten to Saba in the Duchess. FYI, Saba has the shortest runway in the world. Anywhere in the West Indies/Bahamas looks nice. Just my 2c worth.

Its a cold day. The seatbelts are frozen. It's an easy fix. 10 second adjustment. I'll fix it later. Gauge programming and making switches and knobs move is number 1 on my list atm. Still needs to be textured.

If you say so...? ;D The shine will be turned down. It's a matter of changing a figure in 1 line of code in the obj file.

In Sim screenshots of work in progress gauge programming. About 3/4 of the panel is now working, including most of the main gauges like ASI, VSI, Altimeter, most engine gauges Center Console: Throttles Condition Levers Flap Handle Pitch Trim Hydraulic Gauges Pressurization gauges. I'll be throwing myself into getting the entire cockpit working by sometime next week (Overhead included). Panel Regions, displays and manipulators after that. I MIGHT be able to program the CTOT with out of the box datarefs (In theory). We'll see how that pans out though. Then the manual and then in the XA store. Definitely looking to be a Pre Christmas release. In the meantime, here are some test screenshots of it working in the sim. So far, all works properly. Obviously it will have to be compared to the AOM charts to fine tune any performance issues but so far so good. Please keep in mind, these are work in progress screenshots. Textures are not final and need to be color corrected. Some textures still need to be applied (gauge needles and indicators.)

very nice!

Looks like there will be a V1.2. Took about 5 seconds to fix.

Looking forward to it! "... I found that the installer does not have a browse feature ..." OK, that was the culprit. Updated correctly now... Cheers, Albert Glad you got it sorted. ATM, there is no dataref for manually pumping the landing gear out. Not that I could see anyway. I'm waiting for a dataref to be made. Yes, there is a clickspot available in planemaker but a clickspot doesn't animate the linkage.

The one on the left is the electric pitch trim (modeled but not functioning in the x-plane Duchess)

The Duchess engines and props need to overcome the aircrafts weight, drag and ground friction on the takeoff roll. Yes. Although I'm not sure what you mean by it being strange. No. Unfortunately, the real Duchess does not have a VS on the autopilot. It was considered to add one but I have yet to come across a real one that has it. So I left that feature out. Please see the photo below that I took at Bankstown Airport.

LOL, it's all good. All of us at XA consider each other like family, so in that sense, we're all the same. G

Cam and Theo?????????????? Well, I guess his name is easier to remember than mine. GORAN

With the MCP added. These are very quick renders with a few basic settings to give you some kind of perspective into what it looks like when it's put together. The textures will be color corrected.

Thanx guys. I find myself staring at it at times, thinking to myself "I have to make all that work and move?????" I guess it's a good warm up to the 742.

Couple of quick composites. When the texturing is finished for the rest of the cockpit, I'll put that up. I wanted to put up the MCP but Theo has that texture map so that'll have to wait until later.

A few more things to tidy up before getting onto gauge programming and coding. Textures have been getting re done over the past few weeks. I'll put together most of the cockpit soon and throw up a screenshot of that soon.

Thanx Eric. Appreciate that. G

HA! I was waiting for that!

Nice plane!

No. There is no chance that it will run smoothly in FSX. Many 3D modelers make what's called "Render Models". Sub-divided/subsurfed meshes so they can put together a portfolio to showcase to possible employers involved in any kind of CG work. Could be for commercials, TV shows, Magazine Ads, movies, etc... I know of a person who made a steam train, textured it, animated it to go from the train rolling along the tracks and then it transforms (like a transformer) into a robot, jumps up and punches another transformer. The whole scene runs for about 5-10 seconds but it took the guy 5-6 months to create. Check out the Luxology/Modo or Maya galleries where people show their work. Some of it is truly outstanding.

Don't ever assume Javier works on Blender! He's a 3DS Max guy.

Kaphias, am I correct in assuming you want all controls and displays in your immediate viewport when flying in x plane? This is impossible in a full 3D, realistically modeled airliner cockpit. The 744 has far too many controls in its cockpit to fit it all on 1 viewport. If you are asking for a panel that has been scaled back in detail, then I'm afraid you will be disappointed with anything that Cameron sells through the XA store. Also, you mention you got these ideas from Dans ERJ, along with not liking to have to drag your mouse across the screen to set values. Dans ERJ is loaded with manipulators (which is what I am assuming you are talking about when dragging the mouse across the screen). Manipulators are much better than click spots as you can specify values at different speeds depending on the speed of the mouse being dragged. If you are having trouble seeing numbers or letters in the cockpit, perhaps you should set your texture res to extreme or very high and add some anti aliasing. You cannot compare what you see in a real cockpit to a sim cockpit. If you want them to match, you need all graphic settings set to max, including AS filtering and AA. Unfortunately, this leads to a huge drop in performance depending on your computer speed.

What do you mean planemaker panel. Wont it be full 3d. The term "planemaker panel" as Theo puts it, is basically all the panel regions for the displays and any clickspots that do not have manipulators tied to them. If you own the Duchess, open the flight model in planemaker and go to the 3D panel section and you'll see what I mean. That's the planemaker panel Theo is talking about.

New screenshot of the MCP. We'll do a composite of the MCP and panel soon. And original size

http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php?topic=359.msg2276#msg2276 We'll add as much functionality as possible.